Note 11 — BOOK IX.
Reading edition
—Page 354, stanza liv.
The earthlier half, its own and Heaven's before.
In allusion to the well-known Platonic fancy, that love is the yearning of the soul for the twin soul with which it was united in a former existence, and which it instinctively recognizes below. Schiller, in one of his earlier poems, has enlarged on this idea with earnest feeling and vigorous fancy.